1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an isolated polynucleotide molecule comprising the complete chromosome of Bacillus licheniformis. The present invention also relates to features (genes) of the complete chromosomal DNA molecule of Bacillus licheniformis which encode biologically active substances and to nucleic acid constructs, vectors, and host cells comprising the features as well as methods for producing biologically active substances encoded by the features and to methods of using the isolated features derived from the complete chromosomal DNA molecule of Bacillus licheniformis. 
2. Description of the Related Art
Microbes, which make up most of the earth's biomass, have evolved for some 3.8 billion years. They are found in virtually every environment, surviving and thriving in extremes of heat, cold, radiation, pressure, salt, acidity, and darkness. Often in these environments, no other forms of life are found and the only nutrients come from inorganic matter. The diversity and range of their environmental adaptations indicate that microbes long ago “solved” many problems for which scientists are still actively seeking solutions. The value in determining the complete genome sequence of microbes is that it provides a detailed blueprint for the organism revealing all of the biochemical pathways, substrates, intermediates, and end products as well as regulatory networks, and evolutionary relationships to other microbes. A complete manifest of proteins, both structural and catalytic, is encoded as a list of features in the DNA molecule comprising the genome, as well as their likely cellular location.
Knowledge about the enormous range of microbial capacities has broad and far-reaching implications for environmental, energy, health, and industrial applications, such as cleanup of toxic-waste, production of novel therapeutic and preventive agents (drugs and vaccines), energy generation and development of renewable energy sources, production of chemical catalysts, reagents, and enzymes to improve efficiency of industrial processes, management of environmental carbon, nitrogen and nutrient cycling, detection of disease-causing organisms and monitoring of the safety of food and water supplies, use of genetically altered bacteria as living sensors (biosensors) to detect harmful chemicals in soil, air, or water, and understanding of specialized systems used by microbial cells to live in natural environments.
Bacillus licheniformis is a gram positive spore-forming bacterium that is widely distributed as a saprophytic organism in the environment. Unlike most other bacilli that are predominantly aerobic, Bacillus licheniformis is a facultative anaerobe which may allow it to grow in additional ecological niches. This species produces a diverse assortment of extracellular enzymes that are believed to contribute to the process of nutrient cycling in nature (Claus, D. and Berkeley, R. C. W., 1986, In Bergey's Manual of Systematic Bacteriology, Vol. 2., eds. Sneath, P. H. A. et al., Williams and Wilkins Co., Baltimore, Md., pp. 1105-1139). Certain Bacillus licheniformis isolates are capable of denitrification, however, the relevance of this characteristic to environmental denitrification may be small since the species generally persists in soil as endospores (Alexander, M., 1977, Introduction to Soil Microbiology. John Wiley and Sons, Inc., New York).
There are numerous industrial and agricultural uses for Bacillus licheniformis and its extracellular products. The species has been used for decades in the manufacture of industrial enzymes including several proteases, α-amylase, penicillinase, pentosanase, cycloglucosyltransferase, β-mannanase, and several pectinolytic enzymes, owing largely to its ability to secrete sizeable amounts of degradative enzymes. Bacillus licheniformis is also used to produce peptide antibiotics such as bacitracin and proticin, in addition to a number of specialty chemicals such as citric acid, inosine, inosinic acid, and poly-γ-glutamic acid. The proteases from Bacillus licheniformis are used in the detergent industry as well as for dehairing and batting of leather (Eveleigh, D. E., 1981, Scientific American 245, 155-178). Amylases from Bacillus licheniformis are deployed for the hydrolysis of starch, desizing of textiles, and sizing of paper (Erickson, R. J., 1976, In Microbiology, ed. Schlesinger, D. (Am. Soc. Microbiol., Washington, D.C.), pp. 406-419). Certain strains of Bacillus licheniformis have shown efficacy to destroy fungal pathogens affecting maize, grasses, and vegetable crops (U.S. Pat. No. 5,589,381; U.S. Pat. No. 5,665,354). As an endospore-forming bacterium, the ability of the organism to survive under unfavorable environmental conditions may enhance its potential as a natural control agent.
Bacillus licheniformis can be differentiated from other bacilli on the basis of metabolic and physiological tests (Logan, N. A. and Berkeley, R. C. W., 1981, In The Aerobic Endospore-Forming Bacteria Classification and Identification, eds. Berkeley, R. C. W. and Goodfellow, M., Academic Press, Inc., London, pp. 106-140; O'Donnell, A. G., Norris, J. R., Berkeley, R. C. W., Claus, D., Kanero, T., Logan, N. A., and Nozaki, R., 1980, Internat. J. Systematic Bacteriol. 30: 448-459). However, biochemical and phenotypic characteristics may be ambiguous among closely related species. Lapidus et al. (Lapidus, A., Galleron, N., Andersen, J. T., Jørgensen, P. L. Ehrlich, S. D., and Sorokin, A., 2002, FEMS Microbiol. Lett. 209: 23-30) recently constructed a physical map of the Bacillus licheniformis chromosome using a PCR approach, and established a number of regions of co-linearity where gene content and organization were ostensibly conserved with the Bacillus subtilis chromosome.
It would be advantageous to the art to have available the complete primary structure of the chromosomal DNA molecule of the Bacillus licheniformis type strain ATCC 14580. With the complete chromosome data in hand, it should be possible to do comparative genomics and proteomics studies that can lead to improved industrial strains as well as to a better understanding of genome evolution among closely-related bacilli in the subtilis-licheniformis group.
It is an object of the present invention to provide an isolated polynucleotide with the sequence of the complete chromosome of Bacillus licheniformis. 